Three cheers for the Men in Black!

The Supreme Court ruling barring convicted criminals from continuing in office is a giant step in cleansing our politics

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that a convicted elected representative cannot continue in office and the conviction will lead to instant disqualification of the elected representative is a watershed in Indian politics. By striking down the safeguard provided under Section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act 1951 and declared it ultra vires of the Constitution, the Supreme Court has once again ridden to the rescue of the people of India.

The Court has very rightly held that there cannot be two separate laws for elected representatives and contesting candidates. The ruling is prospective so it will not affect MPs and MLAs who have been convicted but have preferred appeals before higher courts where these are pending. So while we may have to live with the present rot in our political class for a while it offers hope that elected representatives in the coming years will measure up to some reasonable standards of probity.

The ruling has not come a moment too soon. An analysis of criminal cases declared by a fairly large sample (little over 4,8000) of sitting MPs and MLAs put together by Anil Bairwal’s indefatigable Association for Democratic Reforms(ADR) and National Election Watch(NEW) shows that 30% of our sitting MPs and MLAs are self-declared criminals as per their sworn affidavits submitted to the Election Commission at the time of contesting elections. Thirty per cent (162 out of 543) of our Lok Sabha MPs have declared criminal cases against themselves, 14% of them have serious criminal cases pending against them.

A look at the party-wise position shows it is parties from the bad lands of the North – the JMM, the RJD and the SP – that have the maximum number of MPs and MLAs with criminal pasts. As in most other spheres it is this heartland of India that trails the rest of the country in all things good and leads in all things bad such as poor human development indicators or poor governance.

The two are, of course, linked. You cannot expect those with criminal pasts to suddenly develop respect for the law merely because they are sitting in august houses that once housed stalwarts like Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan! Hopefully that will change. Once politics is cleansed of criminals, we can hope to see genuine transformation in these states too. They will then march in step with the rest of the country, notably the Western and Southern states, rather than be a drag as at present.